Sunday, 28 April 2013

STOP DOING BORING CARDIO!

Now I get bombarded with such a lot of health
and fitness stuff, most of it I disregard, but sometimes, just sometimes I get something
that makes sense.And I have been
preaching about intervals and short bursts of exercise till the cows come home!!

If you are looking for weight loss and a bit
of conditioning thrown it at the same time, this is the way to go.Please read the below article, and if you are
still one of the many that does long slow steady boring cardio (and you’re not
in training for a marathon) take some heed from this and give the short workout
at the end of the article a go. I have added my own adaptation at the end if
you are a senior or a bad knees or bad back sufferer, so there’s no excuses!

STOP doing this workout
by Joel Marion

What workout?

CARDIO!

That's right, long boring cardio is officially the WORST workout of the year.

Why? Well first, it's boring. I mean, who actually enjoys sitting on an
exercise bike or running on a treadmill for 45 minutes? Not many people.

But much more important than that, it fails to produce fat loss RESULTS. Are
there health benefits? Sure. But you can get those same health benefits (and
more) with much shorter, much more exciting, and invigorating workouts. More on
that in a minute...

-In this study, subjects did 50 minutes of cardio, 5 days a week, and once
again lost no more weight than those who dieted alone!

Well, maybe if they increase it to a full HOUR of cardio a day, SIX days a
week, then cardio will actual product substantial results? No again!

McTiernan et al. Exercise
Effect on Weight and Body Fat in Men and Women. Obesity 2007 June - 15:1496-1512.

-Over the course of this one year study, subjects performed aerobic exercise
for 60 minutes a day, 6 whopping days a week (who even has TIME for that?) and
lost only 3.5 pounds on average in an entire YEAR!

3.5 pounds of fat loss after an HOUR of exercise, nearly every day, for an
ENTIRE year. Man, oh man, cardio really is the worst workout ever!

But as mentioned, there is a much better alternative, and that alternative lies
in short, intense bouts of exercise.

In fact, a recent study published in the European
Journal of Applied Physiology found that 15 minutes of a
circuit-style resistance training workout elevated metabolism for a full THREE
days! And that's only from 15 minutes!

Other studies have found similar results with interval style workouts as short
as 4 minutes producing dramatically more fat loss than long, extended bouts of
cardio.